0

If you think Y Combinator dominates the world of the startup accelerators, YC President Sam Altman agrees with you.

In an on-stage interview at TechCrunch’s Disrupt New York conference, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington said he was trying to get something controversial from Altman, so he asked whether YC sucks “99.9 percent of oxygen out of the accelerator ecosystem.” Altman countered that other accelerators are “doing really cool things,” especially the ones that focus on specific areas like hardware.

However, Altman added that YC is reluctant to invest in startups that have gone through other programs.

“I do think, unlike other stages of investing, there is a monopoly in the accelerator space,” he said.

Arrington pressed him on whether he considers Y Combinator a monopoly, and after a brief, awkward silence, Altman said, “Yeah. I think we get the best companies, which is 90 percent of the hard work.”

On the technical side, the firm has expanded its development team from one to three people, with more hires coming in the future. Altman said there are two main projects — the Hacker News aggregator and its own internal tools: “The way to really scale a venture firm is with software.”

Altman also had some theories about why companies lose their early idealism and focus, a transition that he described thusly: “You start with missionaries and end with mercenaries.” One issue, he said, is going public.

“Being a public company is really terrible for most companies,” he said. “I’d say Facebook and Google have done a pretty good job of standing up to the incredible quarterly pressure to hit numbers, but most companies, and I’ve observed a lot now, don’t do a very good job of that. [Those companies] become incredibly focused of what’s happening this quarter.”

In fact, Altman argued, “I think you can say a lot of evil behavior by companies is short-term optimization,” and conversely, good behavior comes from long-term optimization.

sam-altman10

sam-altman9

sam-altman8

sam-altman

sam-altman7

sam-altman6

sam-altman

sam-altman5

sam-altman3

sam-altman2

sam-altman1

sam-altman

0

CrunchBase

OverviewY Combinator is a startup accelerator based in Mountain View, CA.
In 2005, Y Combinator developed a new model of startup funding. Twice a year they invest a small amount of money ($14-20k + an $80k safe) in a large number of startups (most recently 68). The startups move to Silicon Valley for 3 months. The YC partners work closely with each company to get them into the best possible shape and refine …